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The first author with a recent review is children’s authorBette A. Stevens for Amazing Matildathe Monarch Butterfly and it continues to delight its young readers of all ages with 87 reviews.

About Amazing Matilda

Inspire the Kids in Your Life to Meet Challenges with Patience and Persistence!
This inspirational tale of a Monarch butterfly and her meadowland friends is the second children’s book written and illustrated by Bette A. Stevens.

Packed with action and adventure, this book is sure to entertain and inspire.

Monarch Butterfly conservation is in the news. AMAZING MATILDA is too! Her storyline and illustrations follow the monarch life cycle and highlight milkweed, an environmentally threatened plant, the only food source for monarch caterpillars.

“Amazing Matilda” is a simple story about a caterpillar who wants to fly, but is told — and illustrated — so beautifully. Flowers, insects, animals and more are described in caring detail. We root for Matilda but cherish the advice her friends give her “Be patient and trust your instincts.” Advice for us all! Bravo.

Time to catch up with the recent reviews for the latest release ….Mahoney by Andrew Joyce.

About Mahoney

In this compelling, richly researched novel, author Andrew Joyce tells a story of determination and grit as the Mahoney clan fights to gain a foothold in America. From the first page to the last, fans of Edward Rutherford and W. Michael Gear will enjoy this riveting, historically accurate tale of adventure, endurance, and hope.

In the second year of An Gorta Mhór—the Great Famine—nineteen-year-old Devin Mahoney lies on the dirt floor of his small, dark cabin. He has not eaten in five days. His only hope of survival is to get to America, the land of milk and honey. After surviving disease and storms at sea that decimate crew and passengers alike, Devin’s ship limps into New York Harbor three days before Christmas, 1849. Thus starts an epic journey that will take him and his descendants through one hundred and fourteen years of American history, including the Civil War, the Wild West, and the Great Depression.

Massachusetts author Andrew Joyce took a leaping chance on providing follow-ups to an American classic Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn – and oddly enough he succeeded: REDEMPTION: THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF HUCK FINN AND TOM SAWYER was voted Best Western novel n 2013! Joyce is an inveterate hitchhiker and doubtless that lifestyle has supplied him with the rich imagination he so freely offered in his book YELLOW HAIR – another award winner for historical fiction. MAHONEY explores the history of immigrants from mid-19th century on.

Andrew transports us to Ireland and sets the tone in his beginning of the book – ‘In the second year of an Gorta Mhór – the Great Famine – MacMurragh stepped into Devin Mahoney’s cabin but stopped short, just inside the door. There was not a stick of furniture present; everything had been sold off, one piece at a time, as hunger grew. Devin had not eaten a meal for five days, and then it was only a meager bowl of cornmeal. Before that, he had gone three days with out a single morsel of food passing his lips. Devin Mahoney, the descendant of kings, lay on the dirt floor of his small, dark cabin, waiting for Death to take him by the hand and lead him out of his misery.’ So Andrew remains passionate about American history – the struggles immigrants from Ireland and many other countries endured just to reach the golden shores of America. The subject of the book is history, but we are still living that history now: immigration is still elusive in our contemporary state of discord.

The book is appropriately lengthy, covering as many struggles as it does, and the provided synopsis gels the story well: ‘In the second year of An Gorta Mhór—the Great Famine—nineteen-year-old Devin Mahoney lies on the dirt floor of his small, dark cabin. He has not eaten in five days. His only hope of survival is to get to America, the land of milk and honey. After surviving disease and storms at sea that decimate crew and passengers alike, Devin’s ship limps into New York Harbor three days before Christmas, 1849. Thus starts an epic journey that will take him and his descendants through one hundred and fourteen years of American history, including the Civil War, the Wild West, and the Great Depression.’ The story takes us to 1963 and Martin Luther King’s dream.

The novel is rich in elegant prose and captures that elusive sense of hope at the end of a dark tunnel with finesse. The book is rich in engrossing history and written in a manner that makes it a very fine novel. Grady Harp.

The next author with a recent review is Marina Osipova with her novel of love and warThe Cruel Romance.

About The Cruel Romance

October 1941. A small village outside Moscow. Serafima bids farewell to Vitya, a Soviet officer going to the front. With only moments left together, she places a cross around her beloved’s neck and reluctantly releases him into a cruel world where nothing is certain, especially whether she will ever see him again. Days later Germans invade her village and take over her tiny house. Serafima and her mother must comply with orders, endure abuse, and stay put or their village will be annihilated.

As World War II intertwines Serafima’s and Vitya’s life with that of a young German violinist and a Russian intellectual, their destinies are irrevocably altered. Can they rise to the challenge of agonizing moral choices and learn to forgive and love again? Praise The Cruel Romance is a tale of love, violence, and acceptance as Serafima is forced to live with what the Germans left behind.

This compelling story makes for a thrilling read in a setting and time that comes to life, pulling the reader into the vividly drawn, rarely seen world. Elisabeth Amaral, author of When Any Kind of Love Will Do and Czar Nicholas, The Toad, and Duck Soup

Fantastic!I took my time with this one because it became clear to me early on that this the kind of book you can’t really read in one sitting. This story follows a young Russian girl and her mother during WW2 and the hardships that she dealt with during that time. This author has a gift for bringing such details into her story which really open up the image playing in your mind, providing a much more realistic feel and effect. I love reading stories set in different time periods and this author truly did this time in our history justice. I look forward to reading more from this very talented author

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About Smorgasbord - Variety is the Spice of Life.

My name is Sally Cronin and I am doing what I love.. Writing. Books, short stories, Haiku and blog posts. My previous jobs are only relevant in as much as they have gifted me with a wonderful filing cabinet of memories and experiences which are very useful when putting pen to paper. I move between non-fiction health books and posts and fairy stories, romance and humour. I love variety which is why I called my blog Smorgasbord Invitation and you will find a wide range of subjects. You can find the whole story here.
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Fab reviews, and congrats to my writing friends. I’m happy to say I have all 3 of these books awaiting me on my Kindle! Marina is one of 4 of my favorite historical fiction writers whose books I always look forward to, just seem to not be able to get to them as fast as I want to read. ❤ xx